Pan African, the African focused precious metals producer, has successfully commissioned the Barberton Tailings Retreatment Project (BTRP), at its Barberton Mines and on Friday 28th June 2013 undertook its inaugural gold pour. The BTRP project, which commenced construction in April 2012, was completed on schedule and within budget.

Situated adjacent to the Bramber Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at the Fairview Mine, the retreatment project was designed to retreat 100,000 tonnes of gold tailings per month at an estimated average cash cost of US$800/oz. The plant utilises a Carbon in Leach process followed by electro-winning and smelting to produce a saleable gold product. The project will source about 12,000 tonnes per month of current tailings via a pipeline from the Fairview Concentrator and BIOX® plant and some 88,000 tonnes per month from the TSF.

The BTRP is expected to ramp up to full capacity of 100,000 tonnes per month at an average recovered grade of 0.52g/t by 2nd quarter 2014. It has a current life of mine of six years and will provide Pan African with an additional 20,000oz of gold per annum, increasing BGMO's gold output by approximately 20% to 115,000oz per year. The total capital expenditure budget of the project was ZAR305 million (US$31million), of which approximately 90% has been invoiced to date. All of the construction capital requirements were funded via internal cash flows from BGMO.

Basil Read-Matomo who successfully constructed Pan African's Phoenix Platinum Chrome Tailings Retreatment Plant, designed and constructed the BTRP. The project is managed by an experienced team including BGMO General Manager, Mr Casper Strydom and Metallurgy Manager, Mr Jonathan Irons. The BTRP has created an additional 86 direct employment opportunities in the Barberton area.

Ron Holding, joint interim CEO commented: "We are proud to have commissioned this project on schedule and within budget. The achievement reaffirms our ability to deliver on our development plans at our operations. It also demonstrates the potential for future success of our other organic growth projects at Barberton and Evander."